by Melissa Millecam

(The following is an excerpt from an article that ran in the December 4, 1975 edition of the Hays County Citizen, one of the predecessors of the Hays Free Press.)

Two dollars and fifty cents is a cheap price to pay for instructions on how to get to Heaven. Especially if you get to go in a UFO.

That’s what a group of people paid Sunday night to hear a mysterious couple, whose nationwide travels have inspired their families to abandon their homes and families, preach that they can overcome death and reach the Kingdom of God in a spaceship.

“The Two” as their followers call them, appeared at Carson’s Restaurant where they spent three hours talking to a crowd of about 50 people – half of which was composed of a scruffy band of true believers.

Their basic message is that humans, if they seek the help of those in the “next level” – the Kingdom of God – can rise above their human condition, conquer death, and literally be transported to the “next level” where they will live, in their human bodies forever.

Also called in some press reports as “Bo” and “Peep,” the man and woman are former Houston residents who met three and a half years ago when a revelation came to them.

Gray-haired and middle-aged, Bo, or Marshall Herff Applewhite as he was known when he was a metaphysics teacher in Houston, did most of the speaking in a quiet voice, laughing occasionally – but exhibiting none of the robot-like behavior he has been described as having.

Peep, formerly Bonnie Trusdale Nettles, a plumpish woman whose hair is speckled with gray, sat silently through most of the session, never smiling.

According to the “The Two”, the earth is one of the many “gardens” in the universe that is tended by beings living on the “next level.”

Just as there are season on earth, there are heavenly season. It is now “the Spring,” Bo says , and time for the “harvest.”

That’s why people have been mysteriously abandoning their families and their possessions and even their names to follow the pair. The Two claim they were sent to the next level – where they occupied different bodies – to earth to relay this message. They admit, however, to being born and growing up like other people before they learned of their mission.

“Things are going to happen that you can’t deny,” Bo prophesied, although he wouldn’t go into any details.

The people who choose to follow the path and become enlightened “will get in a space ship and go to another place,” he said solemnly.

The Two claim that they are not seeking followers or trying to persuade people to abandon everything.

But if you seriously want to undertake the journey you will have to give up “anything that is a need to the human condition, overcoming any addiction such as preaching, writing, booze, drugs, giving affection, or knowing if your life insurance is paid up.

“We don’t talk anyone into and we don’t use mesmerism or anything like that,” Peep said.

The Two have been arrested at least once and eyed suspiciously by the police in many places that they have gone. Peep said: “Our experience frightens us. We have had many false accusations and we don’t know what else will happen.We don’t know when we’ll walk through a door and be arrested for something we haven’t done.”

She predicted that they will someday “be exterminated by people who hate the truth. They will be the same type of people who chose Barabas and executed Jesus.”

But then they will be rescued and rise from the dead and return to the second level with their bodies in tact.

The Two deny that they have set up training camps or encourage followers. Making the transformation is an individual effort, they say, and can only be accomplished with the guidance of the next level.

“You are the harvest,” Bo declared. “The members of the next level are available to you. They do not need recruits, but you can go with them if you change your human condition.

“The people here are not following us – they are follwing our information,” Bo said. “There are no training camps. We haven’t told people to abandon their children. We have done just as we are doing with you and as we have left a town some have left with us.”

The Two, generally suspected of being con artists, deny that they are bilking people out of their money.

“There are rumors that we have taken people’s money and run away with thousands of dollars,” Bo said. “At one meeting people decided on collecting a pot and some people came with lots of money. But it is used for groceries and gas for as long as it lasts. Everyone in this process is poor as a church mouse and will be until they leave. They don’t care.”

The Two may have won at least two converts in a New Braunfels couple who told them they are believers. “But what about my two children?” the woman asked. “Can I bring them along?”

Bo told her the children would have to get there on their own, but suggested that she help spread the word.

What happens if you die and miss the harvest? Well, you’ll be coming back in another body sooner or later (although the two say they don’t believe in reincarnation as it is relayed in various religions). If this is a good harvest, Bo says, maybe the next level will come back for another.

But if it isn’t, he warns, the whole earth may be plowed up and another crop planted.

“Why should Iwant to go to the next level?” someone asked.

Although they have been to the next level, Bo and Peep said they couldn’t describe it. Humans can’t any more understand what the Kingdom of God is like than a “dog understands where Alpo comes from.”

The only demonstration of the next level is the fact that you can overcome death, Bo said.

After a period of questions and answering, The Two abruptly arose and walked out the side door. They left their followers to speak with the group.

Daisy, an attractive but pale woman in her twenties, took that name and abandoned her earthly one.

Satan, she said, is alive and well on earth “and is god that man worships.”

He was once in the Kingdom of God, but was thrown out, and now lives at the north and south poles or on a high mountain. He is actively promoting evil in the world.

The earth, she says, is a living being – and man “is bleeding it, taking its energy, and killing it by fighting over it.”

“You mean oil?” she was asked.

“Yes,” she replied.

The Two are unhappy with the turn-out in San Marcos. They advertised the meeting with posters on the Drag in Austin.

Gradually the crowd dispersed from the meeting room at the restaurant. Some of the followers went to the restaurant to eat. The cashier watched them closely to make sure they would pay their checks.

Then as they straggled out of Carsons, she mumbled, “I guess the con artists have all gone.”